office hours - Unifour Pediatrics

David M. Millsaps, MD FAAP
Lynn B. Spees, MD FAAP
L. Brooke Lawrence Hata, MD FAAP
Richard M. Rheinbolt, MD FAAP
Sommer C. Clark, MSN CPNP
Melissa D. McKenzie, MS CPNP
Karen T. Leasure, MSN CPNP
Shawn M. Desmond, MSN CPNP
Nancy C. Witcher, MSN CPNP
Emily L. Young, MSN CPNP
Elizabeth Sheeks, MS RD LDN
Unifour Pediatrics, PA
7/2/13
Location: (Do NOT mail to this address)
3411 Graystone Place (off Fairgrove Church Road)
Postal address:
P. O. Box 1347
Hickory, NC 28603-1347
Comprehensive Medicine ... Infants through College-age
Phone: (828) 328-1118, FAX: (828) 328-1119
Website: www.UnifourPeds.com
Susan H. Huffman, CMPE, Practice Admin
Email: huffman@UnifourPeds.com
HELPFUL INFORMATION ON TELEPHONE CALLS AND OFFICE VISITS
(How to receive help from Unifour Pediatrics for sick, injured, or well pediatric patients at various hours and on various days)
Please keep this at home by your telephone or on your refrigerator door (and another copy by your work phone)
A. SICKNESS OR INJURY TELEPHONE CALLS and/or OFFICE VISITS DURING REGULAR OFFICE HOURS:
We try to see sick or injured patients the same day of your call, providing parents call at reasonable recommended times. Call
as soon as you can after 8AM (828 328-1118) to assure the earliest appointment time (starting at 8AM), before the schedule
starts filling up. We follow a standard medical “triage” protocol of trying to see (or return telephone calls to) the sickest or
more seriously injured children first. This triage system may, on occasion, re-order the telephone call-back schedule, or
“throw off” our office appointment schedule of those who have previously made scheduled appointments. To be fair to those
with planned scheduled appointments, “walk-ins” (those who simply walk in and want to be seen without calling ahead)
without true emergencies will often have to wait until those previously scheduled patients have first been seen. Therefore, to
avoid excessively long waiting times, we strongly suggest that you always call for an appointment. Furthermore, if you know
that your child clearly needs to be seen, that there is clearly not an emergency situation, and there are no nursing questions
that need to be asked before the appointment time, then simply make the appointment via our office personnel rather than
wait for a “nurse call-back”. On the other hand, in certain circumstances, we can provide you appropriate nursing guidance
over the phone, and we will be glad to help you out to that end. Here is what to do if you need to call:
** If you have a true or suspected medical emergency, call 911.
** If you have a poisoning or suspected poisoning, call 800-222-1222 (Poison Control).
For other calls, it is important to provide the following information to our office staff when you call:
- correct phone numbers and times that you can be reached (try to keep the phone free for a “call-back”).
- your name and relationship to the patient.
- full name, age, sex and birth date of your child.
- short but clear description of the problem.
- urgency of this problem, so that we can triage the office appointments and calls in order of clinical importance.
(1) If you REQUIRE a nurse call-back before an appointment is made, we will usually call you back as soon as we
can. We will try to transfer most urgent calls directly to our clinical staff at the time of your original call.
(2) If you clearly need an appointment, if there is not an urgent problem, and if you do not need to talk to the nurse
first, then you should go ahead and make your appointment at the time of this initial call. It is much faster to simply
make the appointment rather than having to wait for a nursing “call-back” (and best appointment times may quickly
“disappear”).
Telephone NO LATER THAN 4:00 PM weekdays - and it might still be possible to see you in the office that same day.
Unfortunately, if you call too late in the day, there may no longer be appointment slots in the late afternoon. Furthermore,
once we have shut down laboratory and computer equipment, and sent home key personnel, we can no longer see you in the
office.
In fairness to our other patients (and to you), we need you to be on time for appointments. One late appointment may cause
a backup of three or four others. If you are more that 10 minutes late, we may ask you to reschedule.
Please do not be a “no show” for an appointment (We respect you, and we hope that you will respect us as well).
www.UnifourPeds.com
B. WELL CHILD VISITS: Well child visits are important components of preventative medicine and frequently locate hidden
problems early, when proper management can be most successfully attained. They are the standard of care expected by the
American Academy of Pediatrics and by medical practice credentialing and certification organizations with which we
participate. Well child visits are expected and are not optional. Please be on time for your well child visit. In fairness to
our other patients (and to you), we need you to be on time, since one late appointment may cause a backup or three of four
others. If you are more that 10 minutes late, we may ask you to reschedule.
C. OFFICE VISITS OUTSIDE REGULAR OFFICE HOURS: Telephone us at 328-1118 at the times listed below. Extra
charge applies for these after-hours office visits, as employee and overhead costs are much higher. These visits are for sick or
injured “urgent care” patients and not for routine well visits. Although we can usually arrange nursing and laboratory
services, we do not have full “weekday staffing” (thus no well check-ups, etc). The front door may be locked for security
purposes, and if so, push the doorbell and we will come out and let you in.
- Telephone AT 8:00-8:15 AM on a Saturday, Sunday or Holiday - if you wish to be seen that morning.
- Telephone BY 4:00 PM on a weekday afternoon - and an office visit might still be possible by 5:00 PM or so.
D. TELEPHONE CONTACT AFTER HOURS:
** 911 for true emergencies **
Otherwise, for an urgent patient-care question, call 328-1118, then option “3" to leave a message for Unifour Pediatrics
to call you back. Depending on the call schedule, this may be Dr. Millsaps, Dr. Hata, Dr. Spees, Dr. Rheinbolt, or one of our
Certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioners: Sommer, Melissa, Karen, Shawn, Nancy, or Emily. During late-night hours, you will
be referred to a pediatric nurse triage service, and they will discuss your child’s problems. After you leave a message, the
system will immediately send a text message to us; we then call you back. Please be careful to provide correct phone
numbers, and the full name and birth date of your child, along with your name and a brief sentence about the problem. Try to
keep your phone free so that we will be able to call you back. If you do not receive a call-back in a reasonable amount of
time, then call back (the cell phone receiving text messages sometimes does not work in lower levels of a steel-frame building
... like a hospital). In the unlikely event that our telephone system fails or the cellular system is down, then you can reach the
Unifour Pediatrics provider on-call through the Frye Regional Medical Center operator (828-315-5000). Please try to ask
routine non-urgent questions during regular office hours and not in the middle of the night. To make an appointment
for the next day, wait until after 8AM when the computers are turned on (we cannot check the appointment schedule
until then.) For further information about after-hours telephone coverage or office hours, ask our office staff. For simple
non-urgent information questions during these after-hours times, consider referring to our recommended references: Caring
for Your Baby and Young Child (Birth to Age 5), and/or to www.aap.org, www.UnifourPeds.com, or www.KidsHealth.org.
If you need to leave a NON-urgent message after hours (for us to call you back the next business day ... examples: routine
medication refills, insurance questions, to make a well-child appointment, ask a simple question, talk with a nurse about a
non-urgent problem, ask parenting questions, etc.), then you can reach us through the same number at 328-1118, then press
option “1" to leave a non-urgent message in English (not “3"), or option “2" to leave a non-urgent message in Spanish (Not
“3"). We will call you back on the next business day to address your needs (for these non-urgent issues). Please be careful to
provide correct phone numbers, best times to call, the full name and birth date of your child, your name and relationship to
the patient, and a few words about the problem. For these non-urgent issues, if we repeatedly cannot get through to the phone
numbers that you have provided, we will not continue to call over and over again, and instead will wait for you to call back.
For this reason, try to provide us the best numbers and times to call you back, and try to avoid tying up the phone. Again, for
simple non-urgent information questions during these after-hours times, consider referring to out recommended references:
(a) Caring for Your Baby and Young Child (Birth to Age 5), and/or (b) to the to the handouts that we will provide you at
each "Well Child Check-up"and/or (c) to www.UnifourPeds.com, www.aap.org, or www.KidsHealth.org.
E. RECOMMENDED READING MATERIALS and INTERNET SITES
WHY THE INTEREST IN PREVENTATIVE MEDICINE, READINGS, AND WEBSITE ACCESS?
Preventative medicine represents optimum quality care and is in the best interest of our patients. Preventative health care,
“wellness” activities, “healthy lifestyles”, and early home treatment also reduces the cost of medical care. It helps to reduce
the number or illnesses and injuries, and catch pediatric problems early before they progress to more serious conditions. In
these days of economic recession, we all need to keep the costs down, avoid missing work, and avoid unnecessary office or
expensive ER visits. We strongly recommend that you refer to these references on a regular basis. Refer to: (a) the
www.UnifourPeds.com
book described below, (b) to the handouts that we will provide you at each “Well Child Check-up”, and (c) to our
UnifourPeds.com web-site. These readings should save you at least 6-8 office (and “Urgent Care”, or ER) visits each
year ... so PLEASE USE ALL THESE EDUCATIONAL FORMS. As your child grows, try to read ahead in the age
appropriate sections, and REFER TO THESE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES IF YOUR CHILD HAS ILLNESS, AN
INJURY, OR A BEHAVIORAL PROBLEM, OR IF YOU HAVE PARENTING OR HEALTH QUESTIONS.
(1) Caring for Your Baby and Young Child (Birth to Age 5) (American Academy of
Pediatrics, 875 pages). This is an outstanding publication, and should continue to provide
excellent advice. Most mothers find this book to be a valuable resource, keep it at their
bedside, and refer to it often. They find that their life as a mother is much more pleasant and
predictable if they read about a month “ahead” of the chronologic age of the child. This
should answer many of your questions and may save you a number of unnecessary office
visits and worries. Also, please take advantage of the “Problem/Sick Child” sections in the
back of this book, and refer to the index to locate specific concerns. Many mothers like to
have a second copy of this book at their mother’s or mother-in-law’s house so that all the
advice they are given as a mother is consistent, up-to-date, non-conflicting and correct (it
helps prevent unnecessary “heated discussions”). This is available at local book stores,
Amazon.com, etc. and this can also be purchased at our office (at cost/handling).
(2) At reach well child check-up, we will provide you handouts covering age-appropriate topics. Please thoroughly read
these documents, keep them in a safe place, and refer to them repeatedly. They will save you time and money.
(3) www.KidsHealth.org is an excellent Internet resource which is full of helpful and interesting information, and has a
great search engine for locating most child care topics.
(4) www.AAP.org is the official web site of the American Academy of Pediatrics and has a large volume of searchable
information about child care topics. We urge you to look around this site.
(5) www.UnifourPeds.com is the newly-released Unifour Pediatric site. We strongly recommend that you refer to this
site on a regular basis. Here, you will find a wealth of information available on a large number of pediatric
health care topics, and will also find comprehensive listing about local pediatric services in the Unifour areas. We also
have listings of specialists,/consultants, pharmacies, durable medical equipment providers, emergency services, and
phone numbers and directions to these services. We invite you to view this site, and please provide us suggestions for
other features that we might add. Day/time-specific information is provided on ways to interact with our office.
L to R: Karen, Dr. Hata, Melissa, Dr. Millsaps, Sommer, Dr. Spees, Shawn, Dr. Rheinbolt, Emily, and Nancy
F. NEWLY ADDED PEDIATRICIAN (Richard M. Rheinbolt, MD FAAP): To better meet the needs of our patients
and their families, we are honored to have Dr. Richard Rheinbolt join Unifour Pediatrics. Dr Rheinbolt has
continuously practiced primary care pediatrics for over 35 years and has maintained an excellent reputation for
quality of care and dedication to children’s concerns. We take great care when selecting our colleagues and will
continue our efforts to seek out “the best” as we add future pediatric providers.
www.UnifourPeds.com
Unifour Pediatrics PA
Guiding Principles
1. Commitment to Excellence - We strive to provide high quality, innovative,
accessible, and affordable healthcare that takes a holistic approach to our patients'
needs.
2. Compassionate Care - We endeavor to treat our patients and their families with
respect and kindness and to provide a comfortable and friendly environment.
3. Continuity of Care - We believe in providing personalized care for our patients and
establishing cooperative, working relationships as they grow. We hope that we will form
substantial lasting patient/doctor relationships. We strive to treat our pediatric patients
and their families as we would treat our own.
4. Education - We seek to actively educate both patients and parents about details of
their healthcare, allowing them to play an active role in prevention, understanding, and
treatment of pediatric illnesses, conditions, and injuries.
5. Communication - We are open to suggestions and constructive criticism as to how we
might improve service to our patients. We believe that through communication we will
be able to adapt our practice to best serve the community.
6. Improvement - The physicians and staff at Unifour Pediatrics are dedicated to
improving their knowledge base, professional competence, and awareness of recent
medical developments. We stress continuing education of our physicians, nurses, and
staff to serve these ends.
7. Equal Access - We strive to treat all patients with the same care, concern, and
dedication, treating all educational, ethnic, and financial backgrounds equally.
8. Staff Well-Being - We want our employees to truly love their job, look forward to
coming to work, and want to stay with the team on a long-term basis. We encourage a
work environment of cooperation, concern for our fellow staff members, cross-training,
fairness, honesty, mutual trust, and professional development. We want our staff to enjoy
a full and healthy life with time for themselves, their families and for their communities.
David Millsaps MD FAAP, Brooke Hata MD FAAP, Lynn Spees MD FAAP, Richard Rheinbolt MD FAAP, and Staff